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for I believe that man was created civilized, both morally and (to a very 
great extent) materially. (Cheers.) He possessed from the first the Svvafuc, 
or potentiality of material civilization, which only needed development by 
contact with the material world. We must look upon the savage not as the 
original primordial man, but as the degraded man, and I challenge the pro- 
duction of any instance of a really savage tribe having raised itself to a 
civilized condition. I do not think there is any authenticated instance ; but 
if it has ever taken place, it has been through the power of religion, and of 
nothing else. Therefore, I only wish that this paper, valuable as it is, should 
have its title changed. It is not a dissertation on “ the early dawn of civiliza- 
tion considered in the light of Scripture,” but the light thrown by Scripture 
upon the early history of undegraded man. 
Mr. J. E. Howard.— Dr. Coleman, my first critic, finds fault with the 
paper because I have said that we arrive at certain conclusions, those conclu- 
sions beingnot exactly mathematical conclusions. It does not appear to me at all 
logical to attempt to deduce the origin of mankind from Adam by any such 
reasoning as Dr. Coleman’s seems to rest upon. My paper was intended for 
those who would agree with me that the Scriptures contain a truthful record 
of the earliest traditions of mankind, and therefore I set out with that as a 
starting point , without attempting to prove anything about the authority of 
Scripture. I merely say, in accordance with the Scripture, that Adam in the 
Hebrew is the name for all classes of mankind. There is only one name for 
mankind in the Scriptures, Adam being the generic name for the whole 
human race. There is a passage (Matt. xix. 4-6) in which our Lord takes 
up the two accounts of the first and second chapters of Genesis, referring to 
the great question of marriage, and unites them as teaching the creation of 
man. That is sufficient for me : I take it on the authority of our Saviour. 
I have already said that my paper must be looked upon simply in the light 
of a preliminary inquiry. In the case of such inquiries we are often quite 
unable to prove that which may still be stated, to a certain extent, as at 
least extremely probable. Mr. Allen made an observation in regard to the 
Deluge: all geologists admit that there has been more than one glacial period; 
I certainly did not say the glacial period was in consequence of the Deluge ; 
indeed I indicated that the period before the Deluge was a specially glacial 
period ; but I have no doubt that there were more than one such periods. 
As to Canon Titcomb’s observations, I do not understand why he says he 
differs so much from what I attempted to say, — that I supposed the Palae- 
olithic period to have been what we should call the Antediluvian period, 
and the Neolithic to have supervened upon that. I have said the Scrip- 
tures only record a short stone period in comparison with the ages that 
have elapsed, and have supposed that the Palaeolithic age and the age 
of the first working of metals coincided to some extent — perhaps not in 
point of locality, but certainly in point of time. 
The meeting was then adjourned. 
